ZuiTube is YouTube for Kids

Kidzui, the company behind the child-safe web browser of the same name, extended its online video experience with ZuiTube, a kid-friendly video destination site.

ZuiTube features a collection of 60,000 videos that have been approved for child viewing by Kidzui’s network of 200 parents and teachers from around the country. The videos are pulled from YouTube using its APIs. Kidzui monitors search and play activity through its service to determine what kids are interested in, from there it will go out and find kid-appropriate videos that match kids’ interests.

The company’s in a bit of a bind when it comes to content. Kidzui doesn’t have relationships with any of the big kids media companies like The Kid’s WB or Nickelodeon, so it’s video content is dependent on YouTube. If a video gets taken down from the video sharing giant, Kidzui no longer has access to it.

Videos have been a part of Kidzui’s downloadable web browser prior to this, but ZuiTube is its own destination and does not require the user to install and launch Kidzui. Since launching its browser in the spring of 2008, Kidzui says that it has generated more than 12 million video plays and that more than 70 percent of the videos available have been watched.

ZuiTube, like Kidzui is free to use. The company makes its money by selling premium memberships that give parents deeper controls and kids more personalization tools and virtual goods.

Other players in the independent kid vid space (i.e. companies not affiliated with a major media outlet like Nickelodeon) include Totlol, which had to put up a registration wall in order to stay in business, and Kideo, which is a browser-based video player that pulls up random clips on a continuous cycle.

Based in San Diego, Kidzui has 30 employees, was founded in Sept. 2006 and has raised $10 million in funding to date.